Pooter

Honestly.. kinda yeah. If you live in a western 1st world country and your views are 60-90% as regressive as Islamic extremists in the third world.. you might have a problem. Born in a slightly different time/place LU fundamentalists are exactly the type of people who would have conducted jihads/crusades over their religious dogma. Christians throughout history have leveraged intolerance to justify violence, just like Islamic extremists do. The Bible is every bit as brutal as the Quran. Only recently after centuries of moderation due mainly to renaissance humanists, have Christians in the western 1st world figured out that bigoted violence isn't okay. Just in time for them to get on their high horse about it. But the intolerance never went away, the violence was just moderated.. from mostly external sources. Religious extremism is the same intolerant mentality whether you find it in Afghanistan or rural Virginia. It just presents differently when it's filtered through local cultural norms.

Under a discord pseudonym that uses your actual first name Jesus H Christ 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ I can see the cyber awareness CBT update now.. Situation of the day: You're T-bagging n00bs with your CoD buddies in discord and a new user named "Steve the sketchy spy" joins the chat. He sends you an attachment labeled "super dope government intel brief". Do you: a) open the attachment b) call the New York Times c) go off the grid d) alert your security manager d INCORRECT e) you forgot to pull your CAC first standby for remediation

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/jack-teixeira-massachusetts-air-national-guard-member-accused-secret-pentagon-documents-leak-dighton/ this one actually identifies the dude

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/authorities-identify-massachusetts-air-national-guard-member-person/story?id=98558673 Airman snuffy really f-ed up this time. I think this EPR might be a referral guys

No I'm saying people vote mainly along party lines and when they don't do that, they vote on candidate personality. Which is why running a bland houseplant is the better move than Kamala or Gavin.. both deeply unlikeable people for a litany of reasons.

Well said. I disagree a lot with Jon Stewart politically but he has a nose for sniffing out bullshit and exposing it. Reference his popularization of the lab leak on colbert's show or all of his amazing 9-11 responders advocacy. It's insane to come into this conversation snippy and condescending the way she did.

Gavin Newsom might be in a three way tie with kamala and trump for the most hated political players in America right now. If Dems go with Gavin that will be a major mistake. His negatives are huge and most of the country is highly aware of the shithole California has become. Stretching Biden for another term is the best play for the left. Other than a left field Yang/Tulsi ticket that they'd never do in a million years. The game at this point is basically whichever party can alienate fewer people wins, so as long as trump is running Dems have a great chance with the senile houseplant

More of a DOD-wide problem but here's Jon Stewart asking the deputy defense secretary basic questions about why we cant account for where 70% of the budget goes And she has the nerve to get snippy with him.. lady, in what world are you going to verbally out-maneuver Jon Stewart

I don't know what to tell you guys, you're all looking for some virtuous moral north star in a game completely devoid of morals. You're absolutely right, it's capricious, targeted, and almost certainly strategically timed for maximum election impact. But if you don't like it, don't give them an opening. Be smarter than them. Because you can bet the left will try to capitalize on any indiscretion just as I would expect the right to do if the roles were reversed. Trump is the epitome of the phrase "play stupid games, win stupid prizes." It's also pretty funny that you mention perception. Because a majority of Americans support the indictment. This is not playing as some horrific travesty of justice anywhere other than very right wing circles. And this next point doesn't speak to the validity of the case, but since you mentioned perception.. it appears the majority perception in America is that trump has existed almost entirely outside the rule of law, so people don't seem to have qualms about the book finally being thrown at him. Trump being held accountable for something.. literally anything.. is a far cry from Maoist/Stalinist political persecution. But you keep trying to sell that one through 2024 and see how far it gets you.

Well one is potentially a crime, and the other is a strategic decision about when to prosecute that potential crime. Seems like a pretty simple distinction to me. And I'm not saying trying to influence an election is bad. That's literally what running for office is. That's why people raise money, and run attack ads, and try to win debates. But the common thread here is: don't be an idiot. If you have skeletons that will hurt your election chances and are going to pay people off, be smart about it and don't get caught. Because you can bet the other team is going to have a field day if they figure out what you did. Im not really interested in making value judgments either way. You all know my opinions on trump but on the flip side of the coin, I don't think the Dems are on some morally virtuous crusade. They're making hay while the sun is shining. That's it.

I do think there's a fun question in here to unpack though.. Are the democrats targeting trump because they actually think they can take him down, or are they doing it to prop him up so he wins the nomination? If it's the latter, which it probably is, it's a great move from the left. I think they believe trump is utterly unelectable in a general election so they want to ensure he's the nominee. If they space out the prosecution of the payments, the Georgia fake electors scheme, and the classified documents, they'll keep the media lens squarely focused on trump to the detriment of any other candidates on the right all the way through this year. Trump's significant but non-majority base will galvanize around his martyr status, edge out any viable Republican candidates, and virtually guarantee dems a win in 2024.

The underlying crime being trying to influence the outcome of an election.. you know that little thing. And I'm sure the prosecution wouldn't debut these charges only to get immediately top-roped by a 5 year timer they forgot to account for. Turns out there quite a lot more nuance to that as well which I'm sure will be fiercely argued in court. The legal analysis I've seen of this case that seems legit all zeros in on the prosecution having to prove trumps intent behind the payments. Because the intent speaks to the possibility of a larger crime.

Oh so I guess he was just "recategorizing" the business expenditures for sh!ts and grins on the specific dates that just so happen to correspond with payoffs his lawyer made to the pornstar he banged. Silly me! Just a simple book keeping snafu. I just hate it when I have a business and I make 35 book-keeping errors that perfectly coincide in amounts and dates with payoffs I'm being accused of. Or.. "business fraud" is the legalese umbrella under which you would charge this exact behavior. The only reasonable defense here for it not to be a felony is that trump was making these payments to conceal the affair from his wife. Because as we all know trump is a yuuuge marriage guy.

It's like you guys just discovered that district attorneys are politically connected people with allegiances and enemies.. Welcome to politics.. and reality. Sorry your guy was stupid enough to pay off a pornstar with campaign funds in state that hates his guts. Maybe do it in the backwoods of Alabama next time. Are you seriously telling me right now If republicans had Hillary dead to rights on some petty charge in a red state they wouldn't prosecute?? Because norms? Its so funny, you guys talk all about "playing the game" in your AF career but it's mind boggling for a political party "play the game" and break norms when it suits them. **Spoiler alert** everyone in politics breaks norms when it suits them.. and bitches about the other party breaking norms when it suits them. It's just one big tit-for-tat game. It's never been fair. And it never will be. So you have two COAs: 1) continue complaining about the game not being fair 2) cut your losses, play smarter, and avoid hitching your wagon to orange clowns who make unforced political errors like it's a bodily function.

Agree with all of the above. The right should get on all of that and prosecute away. I mean it. Every single one of them belongs in jail. But the fact that the right is currently behind the ball does not make trump's prosecution invalid. Only the jury will decide that.

Lol is the insinuation here that trump is squeaky clean and this is nothing but a baseless witch hunt? Like a KGB style targeting of a political dissident? It's a fun narrative for the right to rally around for sure. Except it doesn't jive with reality. Reality is that trump has likely been getting away with crap his entire life due to money, power, and status. His, Biden, and Pence's classified document debacles would be enough to land any of us normies in prison for a long time. But of course none of them will face consequences for that blatant recklessness. Personally I'm glad the left opened this door. Hopefully the right retaliates and prosecutes crimes committed by prominent leftists. As long as the prosecutions have solid evidence, more politicians going to jail on both sides is an extremely good thing. I cannot think of a single group of people who deserve it more.

Yeah luckily I'm older and wiser now and don't fall for that anymore. But it's pretty messed up thinking back to when I was a young LT I never heard that sentiment from any leadership. You just get a nastygram one day saying you're delinquent and on the naughty list and it's gonna hit your credit so you panic and pay it. Doesn't help that you haven't TDY'd enough times yet to attain DTS wizard status, so the likelihood of a voucher kicked back is much higher

I actually really enjoy telling my civilian friends about the GTC because the idea of it is so insane to them. "wait so you mean like a company card.. right?" "wrong.. imagine if your company opened a credit card in your name, but if you use it for the wrong thing you get in massive trouble, and if your expense reports get delayed at all it dings your credit" *insert civilian friend what the fuck face here*

Yet another horseshit aspect of the GTC, a tale as old as time: -get home from a deployment -fill out voucher at finance day after with over the shoulder guidance from finance -finance kicks back the voucher they helped me create -9 grand in airline/rental car fees just sitting there overdue -now I'm on the naughty list -pay the 9 grand out of my personal account to get off the naughty list -voucher approved 2 days later -get on Citi website to get refunded -I have to wait 10 effing business days for a refund because of transaction timing limits

Your mileage may vary but I've never used my gtc for anything other than airline tix and rental cars that were required to be booked through DTS. Probably have 50+ TDYs with hotels on my personal card and never heard a peep except once when someone asked and I told them my GTC got declined. (It was actually true in that instance because the charge was above the GTC credit limit) 👌👌👌

Not a bad idea. or use the national guard. We have roughly 400,000 national guard members and 100,000 public schools so that's roughly 4 guards per school right there. Obviously it wouldn't be full time so you'd have to involve police and volunteers as well but it's certainly doable. Or cut aid to Ukraine by 10% and you've financed a years salary for privately hired guards at every school for a decade

😂 yes.. but I'm sure you're familiar with a circular argument -why do we have so many mass shootings -because of the degraded social fabric -why is our social fabric degraded -because we have so many mass shootings

FWIW the best near term solution for school shootings is probably hardening schools. Armed guards and secured entrances will help a lot. The problem is that if you put those in place it will likely drive the shootings somewhere else that isn't hardened. It's a bandaid fix for a symptom, not the root cause. One idea that could fix the root cause is if the media all came to a gentlemen's agreement to simply not report on the shooters. Some outlets have already figured this out. I'm convinced the attention and notoriety is a huge part of what drives these things so if they refused to show names, faces, or any identifying information about mass shooters that would remove a lot of the incentive. The same goes for social media where "going viral" is valued over all else, so maybe removing the viral aspect of these tragedies is what needs to happen. You'll never be able to squash notoriety at a local level, but I'm convinced the nation/worldwide infamy you get after committing an atrocity is a big motivator for a disenfranchised mentally sick person looking to go out in a big way.

I don't buy this argument any more than the mental health one. The entire western world has been trending more secular/woke/declining social fabric/whatever you want to call it for decades.. but we're the only country with a mass shooting every week. How do you even measure a nebulous concept like declining social fabric? Church attendance? Because that was certainly higher on 1950.. along with racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and men beating their wives. The social fabric argument strikes me as another pie in the sky deflection because it doesn't come with any proposed solution.

Appalling mainstream media reaction aside.. I see a lot of people talking about mental health and how family or someone should notice the warning signs and just because I'm the asshole who always has to play devils advocate.. How would that actually work? People going through deep mental health problems often purposefully conceal it from the friends and family. This is really common in cases of suicide as well. Not to mention your family are probably the least likely people on earth to suspect you of potentially committing mass murder. You extend benefit of the doubt to family by default. I think it's so easy to say "how did they not see it" when it's someone else's kid but if it was our kid I doubt most of us would. Even if you suspect something is off, most people wouldn't immediately jump to report a family member to a government watch list red flagging them for gun ownership. That's quite the leap with potentially life ruining consequences. This is why I find the right's "mental health" argument just as disingenuous as the left's "guns are the problem" argument. Copy broken homes with shitty parenting produce bad kids. But you can't un-ring that bell. Much in the same way you can't un-ring the bell of there being hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation in America. And neither side of the political aisle seems to want to actually do something about guns or mental health when they have the power to. Dems controlled the house, senate, and presidency until last November and didn't do crap. Likewise republicans just say "mental health problem" to deflect without ever proposing any public funding or resources to fix our supposed mental health problem. Mass shootings are literally a fad / social contagion and I worry that the political parties using them as a bat to whack each other with does nothing more than prolong the fad's popularity.